The politicians and the speculators have been the bane of South Africa. Ill-informed secretaries of the British Colonial Office might augment the list, but their stupidity in treating with colonial grievances is so proverbial as to admit them to the rank of natural or providential causes of dissension. Until the Boer Government came into the foreground, the politicians and speculators used South Africa as a huge chessboard, whereon they could manipulate the political and commercial affairs of hundreds of thousands of persons to suit their own fancies and convenience. It was a dilettante politician who operated in South Africa and could not make a cat’s-paw of the colonial secretary in Downing Street, and it was a stupid speculator who was unable to be the power behind the enthroned politician. And South Africa has been the victim. Hundreds of men have gone to South Africa and have become millionaires, but thousands remain in the country praying for money wherewith to return home. The former are the politicians and the speculators; the latter are the miners, the workingmen, and the tradespeople. It is a country where the man with a million becomes a multimillionaire, and the man with hundreds becomes penniless. It is the wealthy man’s footstool and the poor man’s cemetery. Men go there to acquire riches; few go there to assist in making it tenable for white men. Thousands go there with the avowed intention of making their fortunes and then to return. Those who go there as came the immigrants to America--to settle and develop the new country--can be counted only by the score. Of the million white people south of the Zambezi, probably one half are mere fortune-seekers, who would leave the country the very instant they secured a moderate fortune. These have the welfare of the country at heart only in so far as it interferes or assists them in attaining their desired goal. They would ask that Portugal be allowed to rule all of South Africa if they received the assurance that the much-sought-after fortune could be secured six months sooner. They have no conscience other than that which prevents them from stabbing a man to relieve him of his money. They go to the gold and diamond fields to secure wealth, and not to assist in developing law and order, good government, or good institutions. The other half of the white population is composed of men and women who were born in the country--Afrikanders, Dutch, Boers, and other racial representatives, and others who have emigrated thither from the densely populated countries of Europe, with the intention of remaining in the country and taking part in its government and institutions. These classes comprise the South Africans, who love their country and take a real interest in its development and progress. They know its needs and prospects, and are abundantly able to conduct its government so that it will benefit Boer, Englishman, Dutchman, Natalian, and native.